Lacrosse the Border: The First Stretch

The MCLA season is in full swing and we’re fired up here at SFU. We have already played four games and have another one this weekend against our conference rival, the Oregon Ducks.

First let’s recap the first part of 2014!

Western Washington (SFU-16 WWU-9)

Our first game was against Western Washington. Even though we won by 7, it was much closer for most of the game.

We went up 6-0 against the Vikings but they battled back and had it to within 4 heading into the fourth quarter and made sure we didn’t take them lightly this year. They had big poles and athletic middies that were able to clear the ball and give us a little trouble in the transition game. Their goalie also came up a good amount of saves against us.

The game as a whole was a good starting point for us but we definitely had many areas that we needed to improve.

Brigham Young University (SFU-7 BYU-8)

This game was definitely disappointing. The very first faceoff of the game, Sam Clare won it forward to himself and almost took it down the field with a give and go to Tyler Kirkby to get a quick goal but their keeper made a great save. After that we couldn’t really find our groove until the second half.

We found ourselves down 4-0, then 4-2, and back to 6-2 heading into half time. Everyone on our team knew we could play better; it was just a matter of doing it. The second half was definitely a different game. We shut out BYU until halfway into the 4th quarter. This gave our offense a chance to get us back into the game.

We were able to tie it up at 6-6. There were no more goals for a little while. BYU then had possession and got a good shot but our goalie Darren Zwack made a great save. However, it rebounded right to a BYU player. He caught the ball, shot, and Darren had no chance to make the save.

Unfortunately, shortly after we made an error in transition and it left their LSM open. He capitalized and put BYU up by 2. With little time left now, we knew we needed to score quickly. Kirkby was able to dodge and draw a slide which left Travis Hayes wide open and we scored to get it within one. BYU then won the following draw and possessed the ball.

We lost 8-7 to a team we felt like we could’ve beat. Everyone was upset and would’ve given anything for one more possession against them.

Boise State (SFU-27 BSU-5)

Photo Credit: Shawn Carman

The day after the BYU game, we got to play BSU. I honestly wasn’t sure how our team was going to respond. Would we be fatigued, not care, or come out with a chip on our shoulder and show what we were actually capable of?

As you can probably tell by the score we came out firing on all cylinders from the first whistle and played a full 60 minutes. This is one of the most one-sided games I’ve been apart of.

We were just playing so well as a team that it seemed almost effortless to score. It was nice to be able to take our frustration out on someone before we had to go home.

University of Washington (SFU-16 UW-8)

The following weekend we had to make a day trip down to Washington to play the Huskies. It was raining and fairly cold. I kept tightening my bottom string on my head other wise it would’ve been illegal, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

Once we established our lead I felt like we were in control for most of the game. We didn’t play our best, though. We had a lot of unforced errors that made it so we could never get into our groove. There were a lot of penalties on both teams that gave everyone the opportunity to score plenty of goals. We came out with the win but knew we needed to play much better for the following week when we will be playing Oregon.

Since we got back from Washington it has been snowing here for 2 or 3 days and at one point we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to play Oregon. Since the field was covered, we had to practice on an indoor soccer field. We were able to clear all the snow off the field by Wednesday night, allowing us to practice on it Thursday morning. Now we are doing our final preparations for Oregon and are looking forward to playing them Saturday.